And the Colours Changed – here and there, a bit of play, 4-6 CIC, Bethany Garner

WET FELTING/Flat Dyeing has been my focus this spring into “almost summer”, so the opportunity to bring the ‘artwork play’ into a created, somewhat dimensional art quilt was great good fun! Playful determination and the eagerness of keen local students and bringing various Studio Play Days into my calendar helped!

I needed to share my skills with the wishes of some local young artist friends in our Kingston, ON community. A few weeks, taking beautiful merino wool roving and starting with a collaboration day for hand-dyed cloth seemed to be the right connection for finishing my 4-6 Cloth in Common run this year. Both techniques were awesome play!!

Having two or three at a time in my studio, we explored dyeing with multiple colours on white merino wool one day and practicing the intense layering of coloured wool and collecting various palettes in their choice of colour next – well, yes, our time together all worked out fine, even with a room very TIGHT in size with only one table for three students – a teacher’s dilemma.

We all also added hand-dyed cheesecloth that you can see here and there in the “rivers” on my sample wet-felted piece added as our wool design, and before addition to hand-dyed/cotton background before our final hand stitching. (My wet-felted, dyed wool and stitchwork is what you see in the CIC piece above).

Next came the dyeing of cloth for the cutting and layering of background art cloth… bits and pieces of my ‘colour cards’ were the inspiration for our study work used for the young group who are keen to create their artwork and be focused on stepping into the art world. We also dyed a huge table full of hand-dyed cloth and rolls of cheesecloth which was a feature for the change/additions of ’colour and dimension’ on the wet-felted pieces that each student created.

Lots of hand stitching and mumbling, smiles, and then off out the classroom students went, ready to work on the pieces of their background cloth. We all met one more time to talk about finishing with hand stitching using our dyed yarns and cotton threads.  I hope to see the students in a few weeks ready for sharing in our classrooms/galleries.

Above is a small closeup for your peek…

4-6, CIC: AND THE COLOURS CHANGED – here and there, a bit of play!

Bethany Garner
40h” x 24w”
Hand-dyed, wet-felted merino wool with dyed cheesecloth add-ons, and Procion MX dyed cotton cloth as the base. Machine and hand stitched.